If I’m not mistaken, most of these ETFs are American, and thus we cannot invest in them (they need to be “UCITS”). However most have similar/counterpart ETFs that we can invest in. Try searching the key words of each ETF in the search function.
This article is primarily aimed at US investors, who have a different set of ETFs available to them. However, you can find similar ones on iShares.co.uk and vanguardinvestor.co.uk. Some do not have an exact equivalent, but that should not matter. You are really going for a broad mixture of worldwide stocks and bonds. There are some boggleheads articles aimed at UK investors that have suggestions. See
There is no currency exchange fee charged by Trading 212, but there is a very small bid/ask spread on currency exchange (whose rates can be checked on the CFD platform). It will make no significant difference to your long term profit. I suggest to buy either the GBP or EUR version depending on which is your account currency. Both pay the same quarterly dividends in EUR, which will then be converted to your account currency.
It is true that some ETFs have larger spread than is typical on very liquid stocks. I sometimes use hl.co.uk to research the spread before I buy. For example, they say that for VERX “Indicative spread: 0.22%”. Taking a less liquid one, SUWS, Indicative spread: 0.43%. At the better end, ISF and VUSA both have Indicative spread: 0.07%, which makes them popular with day traders.
@dropbrick There is no UK stamp duty on ETFs. If you buy 10 shares of either version of this ETF, either EUR or GBP, you will pay the same in your account currency and will see the same amount in your account currency when you come to sell at a later date. So the EUR/GBP exchange rate actually has no relevance to the return you will make. But some investors have a preference to see the price in one currency or another.
iShares markets different versions of the same fund priced in different currencies. This is to help investors who would otherwise have to pay foreign exchange fees or have preference for a particular bourse. However, for investors using T212 this is not an issue.
There are actually 7 listings of this popular fund! T212 offers 3 of them.
Overall. If I plan to buy and sell an ETF. I can estimate that the charges would be ongoing charge + spread ? And to be safe add spread twice, one for buy and one for sell ?
Of course spread becomes less and less important the longer you hold. If you buy and hold for 10 years only the OCF really matters. If you trade in and out every week then spread is a significant issue, but should be assessed against the volatility and opportunity to profit.
